
Class __L^_ 
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COFSUGHT DEPOSIT. 



MIHRIMA 
AND OTHER POEMS 



MIHRIMA 

AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 

CALE YOUNG RICE 

AUTHOR OF "SHADOWY THRESHOLDS," "WRAITHS AND 
REALITIES," "COLLECTED PLAYS AND POEMS," ETC. 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1922 






^35 



X^.'f 



Copyright, 1922, by 
The Century Co. 



PRINTED IN U. 8. A. 



OCT -2 '22 

©C1A683487 



TO MY FRIEND 
CHARLES SNEED WILLIAMS 

WHO IN ANOTHER ART HAS SO OFTEN 
BEVEALLD THE BEAUTY OF TRUTH 



FOREWORD 

This volume contains four lyrics which are only 
to be found now in "Sea Poems" and ''Songs to 
A. H. R." — collections from former volumes 
which will not be republished. 

It is unwise, perhaps, for an author to say 
any but a final farewell to a literary form he has 
found fascinating, but the drama "Mihrima" is, 
I think, the last of its kind I shall write. 

Cale Young Rice 

Louisville, Ky. 
August, 1922 



CONTENTS 

PAGK 

MlHRIMA 3 

The Jungle 45 

Spring Fever 48 

Evocations 

I A Painting of Ma-Lin 50 

II In a Chinese Restaurant 52 

III A Chinese Lover Philosophizes ... 54 

IV The Great Seducer 56 

V The Lake-Dwellers 58 

VI The Church by the Sea 60 

VII A Maenad to a Young Panther ... 62 

VIII Anodyne 64 

Lurid Lives 

I Rasputin 66 

II A Chicago Red 71 

III Condemned 75 

IV Sibyl, to Her Counsel 77 

V The Doctor's Account of It . . . .82 

Behind the Veil 

I Chance 89 

II Alienation 91 

III Miserere 93 

IV A Colloquy 95 

V Progress 96 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

VI To A Sea-Rock 97 

VII Art 98 

Etchings 

I Cold 99 

II Passage 100 

III Mountain Harmony loi 

IV Storm -Apparitions 103 

V Lights 104 

VI A Maine Coast Sunday 105 

VII Earth-History 107 

VIII Interspace 109 

IX Stillness iii 

X The Sorrow-Makers 113 

At a November Funeral 115 

Wild Geese in Florida 117 

West and East 118 

Transiency 119 

After Much Theatre-Going in New York . . 120 

The Skipper's Chantey 121 

Passion 123 

To a Certain Devotee 124 

Autumn Wisdom 125 

Strength in Extremis 127 



MIHRIMA 



MIHRIMA 

Dramatis Personae 

Argoun. . . ./4n astrologer believed to be des- 
cended from one of the Magi. 
Phranzes. .His son. 

Salha His daughter by an Arab mother. 

MiHRiMA. .The wife of Phranzes: A Greek. 
Alexia . . . .Her mother. 

MuRZiNos. .A dissolute noble of Constantinople. 
Arslan. . . .a relic seller serving him, 

Leah A handmaid to Mihrima. 

Two Nuns. 

Mihrima 

The scene is a large upper chamber in the house 
of Argoun at Jerusalem toward the close of the 
3 



4 MIHRIMA 

i6th century. Through a rear door it looks 
eastward over the Church of the Holy Sepul- 
chre to the Mount of Olives. Though Levan- 
tine in fashion, it has instead of hangings on 
its bluish walls three pictures: one, left, of the 
Magi following the Star; one, right, of the 
gifts in the Manger; and one, over the rear 
door, of the Crucifixion. 

Tzvo other doors, curtained, open right and 
left to other parts of the house, and beyond 
the rear door is a gallery giving down to the 
street gat^. A divan, right, has a wine table 
by it. To the left centre stands anotlier table 
covered with byssus cloth and holding a strange 
crucifix, resembling an ikon, together with 
several astronomical instruments. There are 
other seats. 

Through the wide rear door the dome of the 
Church, the city roofs and the Sacred Mount 
glow under the glorifying gold of the declining 



MIHRIMA 5 

sun. A chant drifts in at whiles front the 
Sepulchre Church, moving and mystical. 

Argoim, an impressive old man of fezv words, 
but of intense, almost fanatical, purpose, sits 
at the crucifix table. In his hands is an astral 
chart which he searches, troubled. His per- 
plexity causes him to rise, at length, and to 
speak. 
Argoun. 

The wounds of Christ, the Holy Star, the Cross 

All mingle strangely in her horoscope. 

But thro a shadow past my power to pierce. 

In its eclipse the Holy Star passes, 

The wounds and Cross immutably abide.^ — 

Tonight Venus again will be in the House 

Of Virgo, and again I must essay. . . . 

[His eyes fall on the crucifix which he lifts 
and gases at half superstitioiisly. The 
chant in the Church ceases. 

Leah, the handmaid, enters silently, but 



6 MIHRIMA 

in terror, behind him — as if pursued. Her 
knees give way under her and she lets fall 
a pannier of fruit she bears. 
Argoun [startled but not turning]. 

Phranzes ? 
Leiah. No, great searcher of the skies, 

[Does obeisance. 
Not he, but one as earth under his feet. 
And under yours, O rabbi of the stars. 
For so intruding hither at this hour 
Upon the astral trouble of your thought. 
But there has chanced to me upon the street 
A word such as — how shall I say it? — have 
The heavens not told you anything? 
It is the Star of Bethlehem, men say, 
That you and he, my noble master Phranzes, 
Watching now on the Mount of Olives, 
Expect again to grow out of the East, 
As in the ancient time leading the Wise Men. 



MIHRIMA 7 

But do they not say too .... it will not 
come . . . 

[Distressed, hesitant. 
To any house . . . 
Argoun. To any house, what? 

[Seats himself, 
Leah. 

Wherein ... 
Argoun [after waiting]. Well, wherein. . . ? 
Leah. .... Can I say it? 

Oh, sir, can I? Breathing even to you 
What I have heard would shame my heart and 

lips. 
For she, who is the halo of this house. 
Who is the very presence of its peace, 
Who with her own white hands of beauty bore 

me 
Miraculously out from among the lepers 
That I was born amid. . . 



8 MIHRIMA 

Argoun [starts]. Mihrima? 

Leah. 

She never could have been . . . less than 
purity. 

[Beseeching him. 
And tho this relic seller whom I met, 
As I was coming hither from the market 
With pomegranates and figs against the mor- 
row, 
May one have known her there, as artfully 
And meaningly he tells, there in her home, 
Her one time home the city of Constantine, 
He could not know, oh star-wise sir, nor could 
The lord he calls his master Murzinos, 

That she was not 

[Argoun's expression is so grave that she 
breaks off. Indeed so strong an agitation 
takes solemn hold of him that he rises. 
Yet when he speaks it is rather to him- 
self. 



MIHRIMA 9 

Argoun. 

This, then, is the shadow that has fallen 
Across my thoughts of her, despite the wounds 
Of Christ which my vision fixed upon her! 
Seeing deception in Alexia, 
As I have. . . . 

Concealment of some past that well might prove 
As quicksands under all our aspirations^ 
Have I trusted the mercy of mere chance. 
Not the surety of stars within my ken, 
Until, now, calamity is ready 
To topple at its heaviest upon us ? 

Leah [sinking down, again distressedly]. 

But, sir it is not true? .... It 

cannot be ? . . . 

[Implores him. 
My mistress. . . . ? 

Argoun. Is, wench . . . [after a pause] 

. . . but what she is. 
And what she is is not for your concernment. 



10 MIHRIMA 

Therefore be silent and obedient. 

For there 's more here to mind than your hand- 
wringings. 

[After considering. 
Yes, so go, and bring me lady Alexia. 
Or no ; I '11 go myself. Stay you rather 
There by the door and watch. If any arrive, 
This Murzinos or his relic seller, warn us. 
[He goes to door left and knocks, but re- 
ceives no answer. 

He knocks again and calls. 
Alexia ! .... Ho ! ... . Alexia ! 

[After waiting, 
I say, are you within, Alexia! 

[A voice — it is Alexia's — replies affront edly. 
Then after a moment Alexia herself ap- 
pears. 

An imposing, self-willed woman, she 
comes down arrogantly. She is much he- 
robed and jewelled. 



MIHRIMA II 

Alexia. 

Why am I summoned here ? 

Why by you summoned, not by a servant? 

Why is my rest broken at this hour ? 
Argoun [wJio hears her out ; then speaks over- 
awingly]. 

Because, woman of subterfuge, the drift 

Of all your indirection now is on you. 

Silence has been a lie that may destroy, 

A vain deception ready here to shatter 

The happiness and hope of all this house. 

Yes, I say ! . . . My son has wed your daugh- 
ter; 

And since within the purple of his veins 

There flows the blood of a King who brought 
incense 

And myrrh out of the East. . . 
Alexia [scornfully]. Since there does? 

Argoun. 

Then he — 



12 MIHRIMA 

Alexia. What? . . . gives you a title here, 

And in the presence of this low wench of the 

lepers, 
To pour, thus, reproachful words on me? 
Am I a slave, am I a dog, a Gadarene, 
To suffer it? 
Argoun. No . . . but a Greek from the 

city of Constantine, 
Therefore a weaver of wiles and of ambitions. 
Alexia. 

Then you shall know, star-meddler, that I wear 
Grecian courage to avow to you — 

[A cry from Leah, at the door, sharply in- 
terrupts her; and angrily bewildered she 
sees Leah shrink towards Argoun, as a 
laugh from without, rings derisively. 
Leah. 

It is he, sir: here! ... the relic seller! 
He is pushing past the keeper and mounts 
up. 



MIHRIMA 13 

Let him not! . . . For he is evil, and sows 
But falsities . . . His words of my mis- 
tress. . . . 

[Arslan appears, in the midst of her plea, 
at the door. He looks hack with a jibe 
at the haMed keeper. 

An iinctiioits, impudent knave zmth 
scrip and staff, he comes down salaaming. 
Alexia beholds him with rage. 
Arslan. 

Your honors, astral lord and Grecian lady, 
Greeting! . . . [again salaaming] . . . Greet- 
ing! 
I give you greeting !..... 
In this abode, I learn, one Phranzes dwells, 
He of the mighty Magi. It is well : 
For I have business he will thank me for. 
What, ask you? 

[Nimbly opening his scrip, 
I have a relic kissed by the Archimandrate, 



14 MIHRIMA 

The Patriarch and thirty Holy Prelates, 
To bring the Star for him. Lady, the Star ! 
Ay ... . lady ! . . . Ay ! . . . And you shall 
see it ! 

[Searches scrip. 
A relic wonderful as a saint's dream, 
A meteor stone that fell in Bethlehem 
With "Christus" writ upon it, and that only ! 

A stone that is a sign See you, see! 

[He finds and displays the stone showily be- 
fore her. For a moment she witholds her 
wrath, then it breaks. 
Alexia. 

Panderer! Church-jackal ! 

Pilgrim-cozener ! 
Cheater of frowsy fools! Fatted impostor! 
How dare you press, thus, across our threshold, 
And thrust, so, your insolent stench upon us ? 

[To Argoun. 



luIHRIMA 15 

FoM have brought him? ;yoMf . . Speak! Who 

is he? 
Arslan [mockingly deprecatory]. 

Oh, fair lady ! No. I come alone. 

For I am a mere humble relic seller, 

A poor wandering soul, upon a journey 

Out of Armenia on pilgrimage. 

[ Suddenly, meaningly. 

But travelling with a lord — 
Alexia. Who bids you, rat, 

Run where you will and gnaw wherever you 
run? 

Blood of the Cross, that can do miracles. 

Is our abode to be so desecrated 

In sight and sound of the very Sepulchre? 
Arslan. 

Nay, proud lady ! Nay ! . . Privacy 

Is sanctity. But since my lord seeks you, 

And since — 



i6 MIHRIMA 

Alexia. I know him not. 

Arslan. Since he seeks you, 

And since — 
Alexia. He is nought to me, offal ! 

Arslan [suddenly sinister]. 

Nor to your daughter, lady? to your daughter?' 
His name ... if you will hear ... is Mur- 
zinos. 

[Dismay and consternation wrench Alexia. 
She is sJtaken by the name as by a bolt. 
Alexia. 

Murzinos ! 
Arslan. Even so, lady. 

[Coolly puts away his relic. 
And you, I see, have still some memory of it. 
[A pause. All wait the event. 
Alexia [to Argonn whose eyes have fixed her]. 
Leave me . . . leave me alone with him . . . 

alone. 
This is nothing — but a remembered name 



MIHRIMA 17 

Malevolently recalled. ... Go and take with 

you 
This waxen wench of the lepers. I will hear 

him. 
His master, who is dead, I know ... or knew. 

If there is anything I pray you, go. 

[Argoun loftily suspicious moves to the door. 
Leah in haste passes through the curtains 
before him. Alexia in clenched bitterness 
seats herself — Arslan before her. 
Alexia {not turning to him]. 

If you have flung at me a cunning lie 
And not a viperous truth, say at once. 
Murzinos is not drowned, as was told me 
By the assembled tongue of witnesses 
Who found his body dead in the Bosphorus ? 
Arslan. 

He lives, lady, and sends his greetings to you. 
Alexia [rising]. 

I '11 not be duped. He was found floating 



i8 MIHRIMA 

N-ear his felucca in the gray of dawn. 

Such resurrection is not possible. 
Arslan [merely shrugging]. 

Then, lady, will you buy a relic of me? 

Armenian saints are the most powerful 

And I have here the nail-parings of three, 

The scapular of one and of Saint — 
Alexia. Oh! [quivering]. 

He is not dead? But still 

Walks upon earth, shameless and dissolute? 

Walks as men whose shadow do not foul it? 

And now is in Jerusalem? 
Arslan. Three days. 

Alexia 

And seeks? seeks her? 
Arslan. You have known him, lady. 

[Nearer; and speaking low. 

And yet ... he has not found her. Only 1 
have. 

Tho if he does . . . if he sees your daughter — 



MIHRIMA 19 

Whom I an hour since saw setting forth 
Pale as the cloistered hope of any nun 
With Argoun's Moslem daughter to the Sepul- 

chre^ — 
If he beholds her . . . whom he still craves . . . 
And learns that now she calls her husband 
"Phranzes". . . 

Alexia, 

Never must he, evil and relentless, 
If there is any power that has cunning, 
Or cunning that has power, to prevent it. 
His glance never again shall stain her beauty. 

Arslan [closer]. 

Then . . . lady . . . what if I have a relic 
That will defend her? that will lure him off? 
One to be bought; one, too, that is sure? 
Would you, my lady, buy it? ... . 

[Their eyes meet. 
Ay . . . he . . . Murzinos, is my master: 
That be granted : 



20 MIHRIMA 

But since he leaves a thirst in me unquenched, 
A thirst for the yellow pour of pretty gold, 
The relic you can buy from me — is silence. 
Alexia [slowly]. 

And treachery? . . . tho who buys a traitor 
Knows well that traitors serve only themselves ? 
No! . . . [desperate], And yet . . . yes! I'll 

buy. But you 
Shall swear, knave, by the Tomb, your relic is 

one, 
That it will lead Murzinos from this city 
At once, to any other, by any guile. 

And that [starts] How ? 

Is that feet at the gate? 

[Listens. 
Arslan [also startled and gliding to door to 
look out]. 
The Moslem maid ! . . . hurrying breath- 
lessly ! 
Ay, and alone! . . . Mihrima is not with her. 



MIHRIMA 21 

[He stands apart, as the stir without in- 
creases. Salha then enters, keen, dark, 
Arabic, aquiver. With pride of mien she 
casts her veil away from her. 
Salha. 

I came before. Mishap has taken her. 

A couch is here? and Christian wine? She 

swooned. 
We were beside the Sepulchre- — 
Alexia [blenching^ My daughter? 

Salha. 
Your daughter. Alany were there, many with 

tapers, 
Chanting and praying, weeping, penitent. 

As your rehgion bids I like it not. 

No, by the Prophet and I would my 

father 
Would turn to Allah .... But, she stood 

there praying. 
Her veil by chance a little loosed from her 



22 MIHRIMA 

And vision on her face. Then, suddenly, 

I saw . . . her eyes fix. 
Alexia. On . . . what? On whom? 

Salha. 

Am I to say? Her soul is mysteries 

And voices that I am not prophet to. 

But not far distant from her gaze there stood 

A lord ... a Byzantine ... his eyes upon 
her 

As I have seen a Bedouin's upon 

His steed found in the desert . . . Ha! Bis- 
mallah ! 

And then . . . But this is words: she will re- 
turn: 

There should be preparation. [Pausing, lis- 
tening] She is near! 

[Goes quickly to door. 

Yes . . . And with her come the two white 
nuns 



MIHRIMA 23 

Whose mercy tended her while I ran on. 

[Turning and seeing Arslan. 
But who — ? Another Byzantine? among 
us? . . . 

{Mihrima's approach leaves no time for re- 
ply. Between the tzvo nuns, though un- 
supported, she enters. An unearthly pal- 
lor clings to her, yet her beauty, golden- 
haired, seems almost to possess an aura. 
Her voice, as Alexia starts tozvard her, 
is hushed yet enthralling. 

MlHRIMA. 

No, mother ! Let not words yet beat on me 
Where silently the wings of God have beaten. 

[Arslan slips out. 
Here are good friends [of the nuns] who have 

been gracious, kind 
As dew upon my sudden withering. 
I thank them and shall thank their convent altar, 



24 MIHRIMA 

A refuge from the intemperable world, 

With offerings. [To them] Now, friends, 

will you leave me ? 
A Nun [still solicitous]. 

If you are strong, daughter. Your sinking 

down — 

MlHRIMA. 

I am, quite, quite . . . So, may peace go with 

you, 
Such as is found only within your walls. 
[They pass out, led by Salha, hut still hesi- 
tant. 

Alexia then turns in trepidation to Mih- 
rima — who stands as one fixed under 
divine fate. 
Alexia. 

And now, my child? 
MiHRiMA. There is no now, mother, 

No peaceful, holy now in all the world, 
Nor ever again shall be thro the long years, 



MIHRIMA 25 

But only the past arisen from its tomb 
To live in and around and with me ever. 

Alexia. 

Words, but words ! What have you seen ? 

MiHRiMA. A ghost, 

A ghost made flesh again — O very flesh! 
For do not think I who have had deep visions 
In which Christ walked upon my spirit's sea, 
As on the waves of Galilee, am dreaming. 
He stood there. . . . 

Alexia. He ? 

MiHRiMA. Abhorrent: Murzinos. 

I had but lifted up my eyes to pray 
That unto Phranzes soon might come the Star 
When I beheld him — the embodied shame 
Of my one time unhappiness before me. 
And now ... I have two husbands. 

Alexia Girl [angrily catttious] ... no! 

[Looking around. 
And will have none if curtains have ears — none. 



26 MIHRIMA 

You have but one and he — 
MiHRiMA. Two! . . . Two! 

One dissolute and faithless who had left me, 

As I believed — and as I hoped — forever; 

And one — 
Alexia. Who alone is. Be silent, then. 

For Murzinos, who so abandoned you. 

And who deceived you, is none. 
MiHRiMA. Tho God knows it? 

And my own soul, to which a presage ever 

Has sought to come and whisper that he lives ? 
Alexia. 

And which is ever a silly convent dupe ? 

A prey to voices and to visions which 

May now make ruin of us? No, I say. 

I am your mother and command your silence. 
MiHRiMA [with all reverence]. 

And I'm your daughter. Yet Tve sent for 
Phranzes. 



MIHRIMA 2^ 

Alexia. 

Giri ! sent ! to tell him ! 

MiHRiMA. Tho the shame strangle me. 

For without qualm or question did he wed me, 
Swept to it, as he thought, by all star-signs. 
Nor doubting that my heart's true innocence 
Might mean less . . . than perfect virginity. 
You, mother, who bethrothed me to him, kept 
Truth from him ... as until too late I learned. 
And I, since, have held it. 
Hoping by some sweet miracle of God, 
Or by some vision given at the hour 
The Star again shall rise out of the East, 
To take away the sting of what he learns. 
But now — 

Alexia. Now, Ingratitude, nun-coddled ! 

Callow, contumacious Disobedience! 

Now you mean \angry, tearful] 

So it is with mothers ! 



28 MIHRIMA 

They travail only to be spurned by children. 
Would I had never given you birth ! . . . 
Never conceived a daughter for my woe. 
Thus I am dealt with, I who get her husbands, 
I her own mother, practising deception 
To win them for her. I — 
MiHRiMA. Would you had not. 

And would that Murzinos had never seen me. 
But left me to the convent's quiet arms, 
Which I was born to, as I sometimes think, 
More nun than wife, in spite of my poor 

beauty. 
But since you did not, since the world had 

touched me 
Terribly once, I hoped, when Phranzes came 
In quest of the Star, to give him all my soul, 
That had been only God's, 
And all my body . . . that is only dust. 
And now I have, loving him as I love 
These streets that once were trod by feet divine. 



MIHRIMA 29 

So when he comes, mother — 
Alexia [who has iiung> herself on the divan hut 
who springs up as Mihrima moves tozmrd 
the door]. 
He shall hear curses on you! 
From your own mother whom you would be- 
tray, 
Who gave you birth, who suckled you, who 

bred you. 
Raising you beauty up to woman height 
That it might lift you higher, and lift me; 
And who, now, at length, after the failure 
Of Murzinos, have wedded you to one 
Who born of the Magi yet may be a king 
If only — 

[Wrath arid tears compel her to desist 
Mihrima [in an effort to restrain her]. 

Mother! . . . 
Alexia. I am forsaken! disobeyed! 

I 'II die of it ! die ! That only is left me. 



30 MIHRIMA 

You are daughter -to your father — who turned 

priest 
And did not know he lived in the world . . . 
ini die! 

[Starting towards curtains. 
And may my death be on you. 
MiHRiMA [holding her]. Mother ! . . . mother ! . . . 
Alexia. 
ril die! 

MiHRiMA This is illness and not reason, 

[Casting abottt for help. 
And may be heard . . . For, if someone 

Ah! 

[Believes she hears a step — the one she awaits. 
Phranzes ! It is Phranzes ; come at last ! 
[She releases Alexia and turns towards the 
door. A Hgiire, that of Mursinos, appears 
within it. Florid yet sinister, he comes 
down toivards her smiling; his eyes are 
such as nothing could make happy; his 



MIHRIMA 31 

restlessness is a disease, a hot obsession. 
Mihrima is as one transfixed. Yet as 
her arms, which she had held out, fall 
slowly to her sides, a strength that seems 
transcendent szveeps into her. She stands 
abhorring yet hallowed. 
MuRZiNOs [dashed, yet assuming assurance]. 
This is your eyrie then, my bird of God ? 
Here you have flown, and here, still wonderful. 
At last are found? ... I greet you and your 

mother, 
Whom I in folly let believe me dead. 

[Scanning their surroundings. 
Wealth, fragrance, wine? Not ill, my lily. 
Solomon's magic is it that provides, 
Or some discovered kinsman's? [To Alexia]. 

You, lady, 
Do not, I venture, violently scorn it. 
Alexia [hatred hooking her hands]. 

If I could kill you ... ! If the heat of Hell 



32 MIHRIMA 

Would burn up from the Pit and shrivel you ! 
If Heaven would fling a fiery rage of light- 
ning 
To pinion you to earth, or if the sky — 
MiHRiMA [preventing Alexia's lifted hands from 
striking]. 
Blows, mother, are vain. Murzinos 
And God and I must have this hour alone, 
Tho to eternity it sear my soul. 
Therefore go . . . go. What speaks in me 
Is more than me and must be heard. Today 
Hands Divine shall save this house or sink it. 
[Prezmling, she leads Alexia off, door left. 
Her mien is almost praeternatural. Slowly 
then she turns. 
Murzinos [w/zo has zvatched admiringly]. 
Done as a queen, an empress, Mihrima, 
Or as one of a diviner right ! 
And your perfection is unchanged; unchange- 
able! 



MIHRIMA 33 

Your face I could not lose in other faces 
Or places, tho the fairest of the world ! 
T have done well in so returning to you ! 

MlHRIMA. 

Then, do ill ! for now your least approaching, 
Your merest touch, would be a sacrilege 
That 's infinite — and not to me alone. 

MuRZiNOS [drawing nearer]. 

Because I am not purged? Then, I will be, 
I will, ay, of every unchastity. 
By priests and absolution — if no touch 
Of you may. I will cleanse me and consent 
Even to stern absentment from your beauty, 
But only till I rewin it ! 

MiHRiMA [in/violably]. Which, Murzinos, 

Can never be: know that, . . . 
Till Dead Sea apples grow in Paradise. 

Murzinos. 

Then Dead Sea apples shall, ere I be thwarted. 
For I '11 disport in sackcloth and in ashes, 



34 MIHRIMA 

I will forsake all other bright embraces. 

MlHRIMA. 

As mine were once forsaken? God will never 
Again permit the peace that I have found 
To break open and -bleed. So if indeed 
You truly repent, leave me ! 
MuRziNOS. Leave? Leave? 

Now I have found all other joys are joyless 
Save the one hungry joy of seeing you, 
Of melting your cold purity to passion? 
I am your husband, and am penitent, 
Full to satiety of other pleasures 
And of all other beauty. Yes, and ready 
To bend, now, to all your tempering 
And be made pure. Therefore it behooves you 
To yield . . . tho without yearning: .... 

that can wait. 
I will not force your heart to heat and clinging 
Or to the tender ardors of my love, 

[Suddenly clasping her. 



MIHRIMA 35 

But kisses I will have, kisses . . . until . . . 
[So rigidly abhorrent is she, his arms release 
her. She staggers; then terror takes her. 

MlHRIMA. 

Phranzes! Oh where are you! . . . Christ! 
. . . Christ, 

Wipe it from me 

MuRZiNos. Christ will seal it faster, 

For it was at His altar that I had you. 
Then will you shame Him? publish with wild 

lips 
To Infidels without that I, your husband, 
Seeking the merest love-rites, am denied ? 
MiHRiMA [in extremis, for again he approaches 
her]. 

Mother! Argoun! Phranzes! 

Mother! . . . Mother! .... 

A Voice [at the gate]. 
Who calls? Who? Where? Who? . . . . 
Mihrima ? 



36 MIHRIMA 

[Mur^ainos falls back chagrined. Hurrying 
steps are heard and Phranzes enters. 
His face — that of a mystic — is pale and 
alarmed. His eyes, cloisters of dreams, 
stare questioning round him. 
MiHRiMA [falling at his feet and sobbing]. 

My husband ! . . . O my husband ! . . . O my — 
MuRZiNOS [comprehending]. God's Son! 

That's the trick, then? 
Phranzes [confused]. Let Hght on this dark- 
ness. 

[He lifts Mihrima. 
What has befallen so to stream your hair, 
Chastely wont to dwell under its veil ? 
An hour ago no fear like this foreboded. 
Has this Greek stranger threatenings ? Or has 

he 
Brought terror tidings fatal to Christendom ? 
Have Pathan hordes raped, again, the shrines 
of it. 



MIHRIMA 37 

Destroying faith? If not, why is he here? 
MuRZiNOs [in the pause]. 

That, my lord, I answer for myself. 
For tho only a stranger to your walls, 
I still can claim to rank as half her husband. 
[He turns on Mihrima. The glow without 
slightly darkens. 
Phranzes [dased]. 

Half — ? Half — ? . . . What is on his tongue ? 
[Seeing that Mihrima stands as one in mar- 
tyrdom. 
Is he beset ? Is it some obsession ? 
Is there a madness in him, Mihrima ? 
Shall I go bring the bedlam-keeper for him ? 
Mihrima. 

My lord, no. You must hear all, at last, 
All that has been. And Christ shall be our 
judge. 
MuRZiNOS [virulently]. 

And Christ will tell you, if she should forget, 



38 MIHRIMA 

That I, a noble, of the city of Constantine, 
From whence she is come — that I wedded her 

there 
And still am her unalterable adorer. 

[A deathly pause, then Phranzes reels to- 
wards him — so blinded, however, zvith an- 
guish as to totter. Bewilderment added to 
his anguish then ensues, and zvhen he 
finds words they are touched with delir- 
ium. 
Phranzes. 
Wake me! ... do not let me dream ... so. 

[Wiping his eyes. 
I think this is the house I have dwelt in, 
Yet sand- winds of the desert seem about me, 
And cruel mirage . . . and no Star, no Star. 
I think it is my house . . . for on that wall 
Do I not see the worship of the Magi, 
And thro that door the sainted Sepulchre? 



MIHRIMA 39 

MiHRiMA [weeping]. 

My lord, yes. And at your feet am I ! 

[Kiieels. 
I who deceived you, tho unknowingly 
At first, and then because .... Shrink not 
from me. 

[He shudders away. 
It was not thro unchastity I failed you. 
Let mortal grief not strike so at your heart. 
Phranzes [throwing himself toward wine-table]. 
Wine! wine! Give me drink. I strangle. 
The stars which have concealed all drift of this 
Seem to be sinking, one by heavy one, 
Into my heart — to crush my Star. 
MiHRiMA. No, no. 

For tho I have been the bride of him who 

stands there 
Led from the convent to him by my mother, 
Who .... I thought .... had told you, 



40 MIHRIMA 

My soul has been beyond his reach or passion 
As God in Heaven is beyond all blasphemy. 

And since my soul is virgin 

Phranzes [to Mur::inos]. Take her away. 

[Blindly. 

Take her! .... Take her Unto you 

were given 
Her first bride vows . . . And . . . there are 

no others. 
I have followed a false faith, a false sky. 
MiHRiMA [racked], 

Phranzes ! 
Phranzes. I am he, who was, no longer. 
[With back to her, he stares through the 
door at the sunset. 
MiHRiMA [wavering a space as one in final 
agony, then as she proceeds becoming re- 
ligiously ecstatic]. 
This is my crucifixion? .... It is finished? 
Father in Heaven, must I suffer all ? 



MIHRIMA 41 

Will you not give my purity the power 

Of truth? Will you not prove to him I love 

That in my heart You walk — that there Your 

garments 
Trail untainted as in a Holy of Holies? 

[Silence, only, answers her plaintive plea. 

Phranses does not move. The sunset 

crimsons. 

With increasing ecstasy she turns to the 

Magi picture. 
Will you, O Purple Kings, will you who cam.e 
Afar out of the East, wrapping worship 
In frankincense and myrrh, will you not hear ? 
Will you not visit him, now, in a vision 
Or send your orient Star at last to him 
As a sign that no pollution ever has sullied 
The waters of my heart his love has drunk? 
O proud, humble Kings, will you not speak? 
[Again she waits, lips moving, and Phranzes 

turns. 



42 MIHRIMA 

But nozv, almost imazvare of him she 
continues, this time taking the crucifix 
from the table and holding it up — each of 
its hands in hers. 
Then you, O Christ ! You, upon the Cross, 
As I am on it! You who suffered betrayal 
Even as I, your yearning follower. 
Will you, whose hands were pierced . . as my 

heart is . . . 
Will you not let your lips utter my truth, 
. Miraculously moving at my need? 

[Silence, again. And now despair begins 
in her. Slowly she puts the crucifix back 
upon the table. Then with a sob she holds 
her palms out to Phranzes, moaning: 
Do with me as you will. All is in vain. 

[Phranses seems for a moment about to 
reply. Then beholding her hands he sees 
a strange thing and starts, for in them are 
crimson wounds, like those of Christ. 



MIHRIMA 43 

With a cry of awe he is on his knees be- 
fore her, and Murzinos, also seeing, 
crosses himself. 
Phranzes [brokenly^. 

A miracle! . . . The holy stigmata! 
The nail-prints of Christ upon her palms! 
The sainted wounds ! . . . . My Mihrima ! 
. . . Mihrima! 

[He kisses the hem of her skirt, humbly, pas- 
sionately. She looks at her hands and 
realization comes to her. Thrown almost 
into a trance by it, she stands, not seeing 
or hearing him — but gazing beatiUcally 
before her. 
Phranzes {rising when she does not move and 
running to door left] . 
A miracle! A miracle! A miracle! 

[Alexia, Argoun, Leah, come amazedly in. 
Beholding what has happened, they too 
stand awed or sign the cross. A chant 



44 MIHRIMA 

from the Church floats in, groming grad- 
ually louder. The sunset rekindles on the 
Church, the city and Olivet. Phranzes 
again is kissing Mihrima's skirt. 
The Curtain. 



THE JUNGLE 

Down in the jungle of the mind, 
Under consciousness and light, 
Where all lost thoughts lie entwined 
Like growths in a tropic night, 
There are strange and awful aims 
Grasping over at the will. 
Wanting it with all the strength 
Of dead things that are living still. 
There are panther-eyed desires 
Crouched suppressed in covert caves; 
Fears like will-o'-the-wisp fires 
Wandering on each air that waves. 
Serpent jealousies there are, 
Driven to burrow in dank haunts — 
45 



46 THE JUNGLE 

On smooth bellies creeping forth 
When a mean hope gives them chance. 
There are marshes of despair 
Where imagination breeds 
Bats that have the face of care, 
Vultures beaked like evil deeds. 
Horrors and confusion cHng 
Cloudy in the branching gloom. 
All things sinister or vile 
Find there ready room. 

Down i,n the jungle of the mind 
These things are, as all men know. 
But among them what fair forms 
Out of foulness grow ! 
Visions that like flowers lift 
Chalices of beauty up; 
Winged wonders magical 
As the moon's enchanted cup. 
Braveries that seize desires 



THE JUNGLE 47 

By their panther-throats and curb them. 

Genius-voices so divine 

Even death cannot disturb them. 

Fawns of joy so fleet of foot 

No wild cruel fang can catch them. 

Eagle-urges of the soul 

Rising where no wing can match them. 

Fronds of hope that mount above 

All the tangle-growth and slime. 

Purposes liana-strong, 

Born to reach and clasp and climb. 

And, amid them all, the sense 

Of the aspiring force of life. 

Master of them, in the end. 

And of all with them at strife ! 



SPRING FEVER 

A soft wind 

Blows from the evening star, 

Blows thro budding maples up to my window. 

It brings upon its breast, from the April streets, 

Voices of children 

And of lovers leaning tenderly under new leaves. 

A dog bays . . . plaintive, distant, insistent. 
Some fibre of him remembers. 
As the scented moon floats, 
Primitive trails and mating calls 

Before he followed man 

He bays again and I tremble a little 
With wildness, loneness, longing. 



SPRING FEVER 49 

There is music somewhere 

Mellowness mute everywhere, 

Febrile passion pervading the night 

Like a tincture, ancient, ineffable 

A tincture eternally restive. 

Anthony ! it was this that drove you 

To Egypt and Cleopatra. 

Abelard, your God was too weak for it! 



EVOCATIONS 



A PAINTING OF MA-LIN 

{Of the Sung Dynasty) 

Just because you painted it so, Ma-Lin, 

The rock and the pine tree springing from it and 

the water. 
And the sampan half fading round 
The dark of the rock toward the high cHff 
That dimly shadows the distance, 
Where birds are only wings, 
I know that you loved vanishing things. 

And I know you felt as the sampan passed on the 
river flowing 

50 



EVOCATIONS SI 

That life as a wind in a dream is ever going, 
And that its strange sad evanescence 
Alone brings beauty's presence. 

And I know that the lean of the pine out over the 

water 
Meant to your sense, as now to mine, 
The mute mysterious immanence 
Of death in the world ; 
And that, because of death's suffusion. 
You longed to think all things Illusion. 

Yes, Ma-Lin, brother of mine, I know these 

things, 
Tho a thousand years have flown since then 
Under the bridge of the sky, 
And tho no longer you look on it, but I. 
For graciously thus does the magic of art 
Give wings to the heart ! 



II 



IN A CHINESE RESTAURANT 



"Chop suey," I say to Ch'ung Li, 
Quaint, quiet, and twenty-three, 
Who smiles as I wearily enter the door 
Thro a curtain of beads and teak. 

"Chop suey. Soon," he answers me. 
And slips away like wind in the tree 
On the lacquered screen in the corner. 
But I feel in his eye, still as a stone 
In an idol's head on a temple's throne, 
A myriad years 
Of the Whang-ho, 
As it tawnily runs 
Under the suns 
Of Ho-nan. 

52 



EVOCATIONS 53 

For Ch'ung's eye holds, as a jade its hue, 

His gods and the long ancestral line 

Of the sires he prays to. 

And it holds the pines by a tea-house door 

At the foot of a mountain age-divine; 

And the tea-girl's lute, for the traveller strung, 

And the misty moon she plays to ; 

And even, I think, the memory 

Of a sire v^ho one day bowed and poured 

Wine for Confucius, and adored 

The Sage, foot-sore and weary. 

So when I am sick of the noise and heat, 
Of the Now, which never is complete, 
Of the rude strife in the rude street, 
I go to Ch'ung. 



Ill 



A CHINESE LOVER PHILOSOPHIZES 

Lao-tse, what does he mean? 
That heaven is, yet is not, seen? 
A mountain is, yet is not, high? 
A cloud, flying, does not fly ? 

What does he mean ? What is life ? 
Wastes of illusion, sown with strife? 
Faith, I know not ! But for me 
There 's a bridge, in the garden of Pu Li, 
That makes, with its shadow in the water, 
Willowy water blue with day, 
A perfect circle — as with the daughter 
Of Li, when I take her hand in mine, 
54 



EVOCATIONS 55 

Is made a circle so divine 

That time and the world flow thro it ! 

And only this, not withered lore, 
Would Lao-tse have taught — no more, 
Had he loved the daughter of Li ! 



IV 



THE GREAT SEDUCER 

Who looks too long from his window 
At the gray, wide, cold sea, 
Where breakers scour the beaches 
With fingers of sharp foam ; 
Who looks too long thro the gray pane 
At the mad, wild, bold sea, 
Shall sell his hearth to a stranger 
And turn his back on home. 

Who looks too long from his window — 
Tho his wife waits by the fire-side — 
At a ship's wings in the offing. 
At a gull's wings on air, 
Shall latch his gate behind him, 
56 



EVOCATIONS 57 

Tho his cattle call from the byre-side, 
And kiss his wife — and leave her — 
And wander everywhere. 

Who looks too long in the twilight, 

Or the dawn-light, or the noon-light. 

Who sees an anchor lifted 

And hungers past content, 

Shall pack his chest for the world's end, 

For alien sun — or moon-light, 

And follow the wind, sateless. 

To Disillusionment! 



THE LAKE-DWELLERS 

I Ve never climbed mountains, 
Nor sailed across the sea, 
I don't know where Llassa is, 
Nor Seoul nor Araby. 
But every year the wild geese, 
With distance on their wings, 
Come dropping into Doole Lake 
And tell me many things. 

They don't speak in Latin, 
And Greek is not their tongue. 
Their lore is not in any book. 
It can't be said or sung. 
58 



EVOCATIONS 59 

But when I see them sink down 
From star-expectant skies, 
I learn what would even make 
The foors heart wise. 

They Ve been where I '11 never go, 
They '11 go as far again. 
Yet, tho I 'm but a man, it is 
Their wings alone I ken. 
For I can see, at Doole Lake, 
More than worlds go by 
In just a flock of wild geese 
That pass along the sky. 



VI 



THE CHURCH BY THE SEA 

A little gray church by the sea, 
In a gray, lone little town I know, 
Has windows, one, two and three, 
With, each, a saint and a verse. 
Lush vines climb over the panes, 
Saint Paul has leaves twined to his knee. 
And more than the sea winds whisper. 
Within, to each prayer lisper. 

On the roof in a stole of moss 
Is a belfry, meek, mellow and wise, 
Lifting above it a cross 
And tongued with a priestly bell. 
60 



EVOCATIONS 01 

Gray paths that wind to the door 
Are of shells from the sea's tide and toss, 
And a coast-light, calm as a verger, 
Greets, near, each seaward emerger. 

Soothing to soul and heart 
This gray, sad little sea-church is ; 
For it holds the sacred art 
Of being simply itself. 
And never can words impart 
What calm beauty in that abides j 
Nor what ineflfable leaven 
Of grace, as if from Heaven. 



VII 

A MAENAD TO A YOUNG PANTHER 

fivoe, come, cub of the panther, 
Out of your covert come to me, quickly. 
Out of the laurel hiding you thickly, 
Into the moonray come! 
No lean lance is waiting to pierce you, 
As did the hunter's spear your dam. 
Hunger is on you ; I will nurse you, 
Crooning a dithyramb! 
Crooning a maenad-chorus, wild: 
Milk divine is swelling my breast. 
Do not fear to be my child. 
Thirst not, in unrest ! 
Do not fear to suckle of tameness, 
62 



EVOCATIONS 63 

Fierce in me are cunning and strength, 

Stealth to hide, Hke you, in the branches, 

Spring — and tear, at length ! 

'kvoe, come, whelp of the panther, 

Crushing the young tree rods ! 

Forth to me come! for courage only 

Counts with the fearless gods ! 



VIII 



ANODYNE 



(To Josephine Hamill) 

The young moon, the evening star and night, 
And the wandering wash of the world-cirding 

tide, 
And the level sands, long and low and wide, 
Fringed by shadowy palms — 
These are things the heart will never forget, 
That leave no whisper of sadness or regret, 
That make the soul glad to be caught in the net 
Of the starry Universe. 

For who can behold the young moon sink to bed 
On silvery clouds, or hear each billowy verse 
Of the tide chant there is neither better nor worse 
64 



EVOCATIONS 65 

When men take infinity for their nurse — 

Who can hear it and moan? 

None ! for however worn and sad and lone 

We wander the beaches of earth, 

No moon has ever set or dawn had birth 

But men have found in days and nights a worth 

Transcending misery; 

And we are sure that beauty is one with health 

When it is touched with the Eternal's wealth 

Of wonder and peace. 

Therefore is beauty the soul's true anodyne 

For all the ills that never should have been. 



LURID LIVES 
I 

RASPUTIN 

(To his band of court ladies and other satellites) 

Build an altar in my chamber, 
Spread linen upon the floor. 
Let two candles burn. 
I am Russia, I am God, 
I am God's czar on earth: 
You shall be as I ! 

Build an altar! Bring food, 
Bring foam of red champagne. 
We shall feast, in a ring, 
66 



LURID LIVES 67 

Chanting hymns around! 
Then, communing, cup to cup, 
We shall rise like bubbles up, 
Rise and float on air ! 
For by love's might, divine, 
You '11 be His, being mine. 
You '11 be His. Haste, then, 
Let our joys twine! 

For, remember this, 

You, high and haughty! 

I was a muzhik in the wilds, 

I was a pilgrim on the roads, 

I have sinned, wholly. 

And to sinners alone come, 

When they pray, spent and dumb, 

Bliss fulest salvation. 

So to you, as to me. 

There shall come the ecstasy, 

God bids me give you. 



68 LURID LIVES 

Body and soul I will fuse 

In you. Then, when I choose, 

I will kiss and save you ! 

Yes ! I, a muzhik lowly, 

/ can do this thing. 

Jesus Christ knew a manger. 

I to filth am no stranger, 

Long I fed as swine : 

Till a day men beheld 

Might in me, and women enspelled 

Led me to the throne — 

Where the Czarina sat, palely, 

Waiting for an heir. 

And to her they cried, 

"A saint, of the Crucified, 

Who transcends sin! 

Bid the Czar hear him, 

Tho it be chagrin. 



LURID LIVES 69 

Bid the Czar hear him !" . . . 
An heir entered in! 

Haste, then! in Christ's name! 

I am Russia's holy flame, 

I, the sin-transcender ! 

Ministers of state, or war, 

Seek me out, near and far, 

Kiss my hands, fawning. 

For they know none may dare 

Rise against my power. 

Over the steppes, in their folly, 

They should go, melancholy. 

Eating wind and rain ! 

Over the snow they should go — 

To Siberia's pain! 

But to all who gather 
In my holy band. 



70 LURID LIVES 

There shall come bliss. 

They shall dance up to God, 

Glide to salvation. 

They shall feel the thirst of sin, 

Given first to Adam. 

They shall eat the apple of Eve, 

Then, v^hen they win reprieve, 

Joy, past all measure, 

They shall know why I teach 

Sinners alone to Heaven reach; 

Yea, and why fools, who cry 

I shall fail and fall, lie! 

Haste, then; build our shrine. 

With a holy pleasure ! 



II 



A CHICAGO RED 

(In a gram elevator) 

I Ve got the sack, have I, and I can go ? 
I need n't mouth, toothless, about it either ? 
My fangs are out, you 're guessing, from now on ? 
By God, and if they are, is n't there reason? 
Have n't I bitten enough at hands like yours, 
You "wheat king of the prairies," to be toothless? 
Have n't I gnawned at cunning lies that strangle 
A poor man's guts and tell him slenderness 
Of belly's good — better than rich men's fat? 
Haven't I, day and night, never weary. 
Sunk my teeth in the gilded rotten heels 

Of your curst labor-grinding money-gods? 

71 



^2 LURID LIVES 

And do you sit there swivelling in comfort, 
With twenty million dollars in your pockets 
And twenty million thefts upon your soul, 
And smile, 

And think : "The old goat's Heaven is Bolshevism, 
Damn pity he can't go and chew his cud there" ? 

You do, smug and contemptuous; and you sneer 

too 
That now I 'm off I '11 talk myself cross-eyed ! 
A lie ! It 's looking upon the looting likes 
Of such as you, who 're crooked as a hell-claw, 
Who only know one straight line in the world — 
To the nearest pile of pelf — that twists my eyes ! 
It 's knowing how you slip the price of bread up. 
You and your kind, a thieving cent or two, 
And then how, with the profit pouched, you see 
Upon each coin only, *Tn God We Trust," 
Not starving faces staring at your greed — 
Women's faces, little wizened children's. 



LURID LIVES 73 

In Europe there, or ever-hungry Asia! 
It 's knowing how the jazz of gold deafs you 
To the rattle of bones, that are so fleshless worms 
Could n't live on them, into unnumbered graves ! 
By the blood of Truth it is ! And what 's your 

answer? 
'This is a free country. Take away 
The right of a man to make all that he can, 
Or confiscate his money when he 's made it. 
And the spine of civilization breaks in two. 
While as for Europe, let her work and pay. 
Not war ; let spawning China cease to breed 

Superfluous hordes if she dislikes famine 

/ had no children till I made a fortune " 

You pea's-cod of importance, with your "I," 
That *s but a flimsy futile ark of self 
Upon the Flood now beginning to rise ! 
When will you learn the only safety for it' — 
And for humanity — is to invite 



74 LURID LIVES 

All into it, and then rename it *'We"! 
When will you learn God gives the soil grain, 
Not for your greed, not to be garnered up 
In wormy elevators and gambled with, 
But to feed hungry lips? 
When will you grasp the new gospel of Christ, 
That workers only shall inherit the earth, 
And that rewarded work alone is Heaven ? 

Never, you think, never, while such flaunters 
Of red rags as I, with bile for blood 
And dynamite for brains, keep raving it? 
Then you will, so help me, when you see 
How Revolution that is surging up 
Already at the sluice-gates of the world 

Shall 

God ! It 's all useless ; for no tide 
Or rage can ever overwhelm a land 
So bloated with the fat of food and fortune ! 



Ill 



CONDEMNED 



What, it is dawn? And the trap's ready? and 

you, with the Book? 
Round the gray cell I have scarcely time for an- 
other look? 
Over my eyes the cap will be slipped, in a 

moment more? 
Only that much of breath is left me, ere thro the 

floor 
I 'm to be shot . . . and swing on air, over the 

ground ? 
Swing, as a hanged man must, and stare; till 

sight 's drowned ? 
Well then, to it ! But, mind ; no prating of *'God'* 

at the trap. 

75 



id LURID LIVES 

God is only the Night that fills the Unknown's 

gap. 
"He is the Resurrection," you answer, "and the 

Life"? 
Vow so when you have slain your friend — and a 

wanton wife! 



IV 

SIBYL, TO HER COUNSEL 

May you come in? Yes, and all the world. 
Now that I know the truth about my shame, 
How it is worse than mine, prison will serve 
As well as any place to hide it in — 
Unless you happen to have a drop of poison 
To butter my bread with, and you have n't : 
That must be churned, here, out of my heart. 

How old am I? . . . You must know? 

Thirty. 
What was my mode of life — and where lived? 
A word will answer that, one amorous word 
Sipped lusciously from books by you and all men 
With keen, secret, orgiastic pleasure : 



78 LURID LIVES 

I 've been since twenty-one a courtesan, 
Sunk, at last, to the streets, and so here .... 
The now that I know why, I don't care: 
My own image was not upon my soul, 
Nor was my own flesh upon my body: ... 
So if the jury you appear before. 
You who want me too, like all the rest, 
As I can see . . . having so often hunted 
The jungle eyes of men for the least stir 
Of passion, the least thought of my breast's soft- 
ness 

Or limbs whiteness if, I say, the jury. . . . 

But that 's no matter . . . that nor anything . . . 

Not even in the end who the judge is — 

Unless you get God — changing the venue. 

If that 's your legal slang, from earth to Heaven : 

For none but God can judge the tangled growths 

Sprung from the seeds heredity has sown 

So blightingly across the generations; 



LURID LIVES 79 

Nor will remembering, as your eyes so plainly 
And patiently remind me now to do, 
That twelve talesmen will file into a box, 
And not archangels, on my day of judgment, 
Change matters. For I do. But now that I 

know 
Why 1 have been a harlot, why my body 
Has never tended the "vestal shrine of virtue," 
All else is as the futile weight of nothing. 
Yes, and, notwithstanding that, I see 
How you, the appointed "counsel for the de- 
fense," 
And handsome too with the flush of yearning on 

you, 
Would give — like many another who has craved 
The scarlet I have but inherited — 
All flowers of earth for this red one of Hell. 
Yes, I say . . . and yet if I 'm alluring, 
Still . . . it is only for what I 've been. 



8o LURID LIVES 

I and my kind, since the first lover's thought 
Strayed to a "strange woman" .... So if 

your jury, 
Forgetting that, let their eyes slip down 
My body, instead of straight into my heart, 
They too, desiring, will no doubt accuse 
My beauty, that no longer means enticement, 
Of having sought even to seduce Justice. 
And meanwhile I shall know that in my breast 
Only one thought is breathing — with a despair 
That is beyond all bitterness : the thought 
That lust was my dead mother's wanton trade 
Ere I, too, was born a mistress of it, 
And that there are no innocent or guilty 
Anywhere in the universe, but only 
The chain-gang of heredity, bound together 
By the helpless sin of all, and tramping the prison 
Or highways of life — ^inescapably. 
I shall know this, I say, or if it be 



LURID LIVES 8i 

Not so, then God forgive me— or, if He must. 

Punish me for each one of all the sins 

But one I am guiltless of— bearing children! 



THE DOCTOR S ACCOUNT OF IT 

Pouring slow digitalis into a phial 

For some over-forgetful heart's beating, 

He said, ''What lay at the root of all was only 

Too much belief in God — and yet too little ; 

For superstition and atheism are born 

Of the same mother ... as you will perceive. 

"The apple tree stood there by the w^ell-sweep, 
Not wholly withered as now, and with fruit on 

it— 
The kind of fruit you bite into then drop, 
As if thinking of Eve and the Garden of Eden. 
And here at the window where we sit sat Jem, 
82 



LURID LIVES 83 

His brooding jealousy as dark and seething 
As the cloud that rose behind the wood yonder 
And shoved the heat of August down on earth. 

**He was looking out upon his wife, Hester, 

A morning-glory slip of a thing, I 'd say, 

Who had gone to escape his mood out into the 

orchard 
And who stood there by the shrivelled tree reach- 
ing 
To pluck one of the apples — and he was asking 
Himself with sullen pain: *Can I trust her? 
She 's ripe for any man's desire, that 's plain. 
And Gary knows it . . . Why then may the smiles 
She gives not mean that he already has pluckt 

her?' 
He was asking that ; and in a brace of moments 
Would likely enough have sunk into a slough 
Of remorse, for his shameful thought of her, 
Had not the bolt — mind you, from a Jblue sky^ 



84 LURID LIVES 

For the storm still hung stagnant there in the 

west — 
Had it not fallen, — thunder, and then lightning, 
A shivering sharp incandescent flame of it. 
And struck her with such fiery jagged suddenness 
That she fell down, charred and shrivelled, to 

earth. 

"Incredible? 

To him, yes, as well as you ; but also 
Quite Bibhcal, or so he chose to take it: 
And medicine for that was not at hand. 
The funeral in the rain the next day — 
When she was laid between a fir and willow 
Upon our hill of dank text-ridden tombs — 
Was solemn with a sense that God's judgment 
Had fallen on some secret wickedness. 
And what that wickedness was Jem's jealousy. 
Now fortified by fate, no longer questioned. 



LURID LIVES 85 

"When therefore he had turned his mare's head 

homeward 
From the cemetery, thro the sucking mud 
And under dripping hedges, every hoof -beat 
And heart-beat drove bitterness into h'm; 
And night blackened bitterness to hate; 
And day heated hate to white revenge. 
For tho a voice whispered he might be wrong, 
That a judgment of God might fall upon the pure, 
As blight upon innocent fields of grain, 
Another voice told h:m relentlessly 
That God, smiting only one of the sinners. 
Who had seared his happiness this side of 

Heaven, 
Had left the other to be punished by — 
He did not say himself — tho all his hate did. 

"Then came the night he went to seek Gary : 

Out past the withered apple, whose charred limbs 
Shone gritty in the moon ; up thro the wood 



86 LURID LIVES 

That flung dark shadows on his path like spells ; 

Then down the valley to a cottage door 

Draped in unearthly stillness by the gloom. 

His heart was beating blindly, the blood pushed 

Painfully at the hot base of his brain. 

He struck upon the door and had words ready — 

Ready as shot — to pour into the soul 

Of the opener — as shot rammed in his gun. 

But when the door rasped and swung and he 

sought 
To pull the nerve-trigger that should release them 
And after them the gun's avenging lead, 
When he beheld Gary gravely there 
In half-somnambulistic wonder gaping, 
Only a ghastly impotent gurgle came 
Out of his lips — and apoplectic writhings. 
Then he fell down^ — yes ! — as Hester had fallen, 
A paralytic, his passion swiftly thwarted, 
And was borne into the house, shrunken and help- 
less. 



LURID LIVES 87 

"He lay there thro the long weeks that followed, 

His tongue a moveless clot within his mouth, 

His legs will-less logs of misery, 

His eyes wandering ever toward Gary, — 

Who tended him with pale pondering patience, — 

And ever seeking the bitter roots of truth. 

Then one day Gary comprehending said, 

*Was it that, Jem? You believed her faithless? 

Well, man, you wronged her — and have wronged 

me.' 
Whereat the spasm of life left in the dying 
Took hold of Jem's dead strangled tongue and 

cried, 
*If it is true, then there is no 

God!' 
And with that moan he fell back into silence. 
As a stone into a pool, leaving but shudders 
To ripple over awe-struck Gary's gaze. 

*'Too much belief, I say: and yet too little. 



88 LURID LIVES 

But you will pardon me ; this digitalis 

Demands " 

He passed with it beyond his door. 



BEHIND THE VEIL 



CHANCE 

What is Chance? Circumstance, 
Shut for a moment from God's glance? 
Hear what happened today, 
Then say ! 

On a pleasure beach a woman stood 
And gazed, as, reach upon reach, 
I rose in a whirring plane 
Till far thro the ether's girth 
The glad sea and the green earth 
Seemed but joys a bird had dreamed. 
89 



90 BEHIND THE VEIL 

She gazed, till down again 

In the pilot's hands, 

I circled safe to the sands, 

And then in a rapture cried, 

"I too the skies will ride!" 

And mounted the wings, trembling. 

Yet trustful as a bride. 

And a bride she was — of Death. 
For the iron heart of the plane, 
Barred — by Chance — of breath, 
Missed a beat, then again. 
There in the aisles of space. 
Then like a thing that has never flown 
Cruelly plunged, down, like a stone, 
Burying under it flesh and bone, 
Mangled! 

What, I say, is Chance? 
Anarch Circumstance, 
Unmastered by God's glance? 



II 



ALIENATION 



A sense of tropic trouble, 

Of beauty and fear .... I tremble. 

For storm swerves ominous northward, 

The Gulf gray-green under it, 

And pelicans glide on planes of the wind 

For a mile with a single wing-beat. 

A porpoise, too, scallops the waves 

With steel-swift plunges thro them, 

While a man-of-war hawk, high in the murk, 

Points bow-wings at the moon-wraith. 

What is the meaning of it — 
This beautiful breath of terror? 
91 



92 BEHIND THE VEIL 

Is Life again at a moment of new creativeness, 
Which wild things wildly sense the inscrutable 
urge of ? 

Palms seem to know, steeped in the sultry mood 

of it, 
And the veriest insects driven to shelter in them. 
But God, and I, too far from Nature, 
Can only tremble and wonder. 



Ill 



MISERERE 



Wind, rain and thunder last night wildly intoned 
A mighty miserere to the skies. 
Under a surge of sound the forest moaned 
And swayed and crossed itself, penitent-wise. 
Its leafy limbs reached out, or clutched and lis- 
tened. 
As still things seem to do, for the next crash. 
Terribly then followed the lightning's lash. 
And the wet earth, scourged with pallor, glistened. 

Infinite seemed the sound along the earth; 
And yet beyond lay interstellar space. 
To which such spasms are but as the worth 
93 



94 BEHIND THE VEIL 

And buzz of a fly's wing — leaving no trace. 

Is there no final measure then at all 

For greatness? Are our strivings, too, as small? 



IV 

A COLLOQUY 

Said I, with a heart of the sea too full, 
**I am weary of wind — and wave — and gull. 
There is no more bliss for me in far sails, 
And nothing is left, since beauty fails!" 

Said I: *'With a chest of gold doubloons, 
Is God but a miser of suns and moons? 
Will He spend no more of them still to give 
Me beauty by which alone I live ?" 

Said I : "He ought, for better or worse, 
To spend on beauty the Universe." 
Said He: **What else is the meanng, fool. 
Of your thirst no quaffs of beauty cool!" 
95 



PROGRESS 

Is it a wave we catch at, 

To find that it ebbs only to leave 

A little foam in the hand, 

A little faith, a little dream, 

Luring us on to tomorrow? 

Or is it a tide that must be taken 

To voyage the Universe? 



96 



VI 



TO A SEA-ROCK 

You are strong, tide-breaking granite, 

Not brief and mortally weak ; 

But can you behold moon, star and planet, 

Sands in the great hour-glass of God, 

Sift thro space, then to their place 

Turn again, with a glory and grace 

That make sight seem immortal ? 

Will you change, then, with me? 
Speak ! 



97 



VII 



ART 



An invisible Worker 

Drives gray nails of rain 

Drenchingly into the earth. 

He is building floors of grass and pavilions of 
trees, 

To be hued a little hence with the breath of blos- 
soms. 

He is shaping his House of Life 

I had rather build a blade of grass 
Than self -entombing pyramids. 



ETCHINGS 
I 

COLD 

Winter . . . and still winter! 

Down hill stagger the corn-stooks, heavy with ice. 

Sheep in the bottom shiver. 

The abandoned barn crumbles with wind and cold. 

An elm darns like a crone above it, 

With needle limbs that creak and clash 

In and out endlessly. 

But a rent of the sky still lets the snow in. 

And my heart lets in the chill of the years . . . 
Of the years! 



II 



PASSAGE 



A dark sail, 

Like a wild-goose wing, 

Where the sunset was. 

The moon soon will silver its sinewy flight 

Thro the night watches. 

And the far flight 

Of those immortal migrants, 

The ever-returning stars. 



100 



Ill 

MOUNTAIN HARMONY 

(Mohonk) 

Lights in the valley kindle. 
The peaks are dark 
And the west ashen. 
Night falls silently stark. 

The moon is pale and slender; 
The moon-star large 
And alone as a beacon 
New-lit on the day's marge. 

The lake is flowing shadow. 
The cliffs stand black 

lOI 



102 ETCHINGS 

And tall and mystic: 

To them the wind comes back . , 

And, for a space, whispers 
Of day that 's gone ; 
Then lies down, on the waters, 
Till the dawn. 



IV 

STORM-APPARITIONS 

The white breasts 

Of poplar leaves 

Swim in the wind . . . : 

Against the swirl of night falling 

They seem as pale as the souls of children 

Dead at birth and adrift on Time 

From Nowhence to Nowhither. 



103 



LIGHTS 

Thro a rush of rain the rush of a funeral train, 

And the pale arm of a headlight pushing 

The darkness from its track, 

With a swift ghostly sweep, 

Into the outer darkness. 

Pushing it, as, perhaps, the departed soul. 

On its way to the Unknown, 

Pushes back Death's inimical darkness. 



104 



VI 

A MAINE COAST SUNDAY 

Idly the seaweed sways, 

A gull as idly floats. 

The tide is a glass in which the sky 

On its blue self dotes. 

The light-tower stands inane, 

Blind as an owl in the sun, 

And stares, without a memory, 

At the wreck on the rocks undone. 

As idle too are the throng. 
Who, by the tide's tone, 
Loll at rest, borrowing all 
That sun and sea loan. 
105 



io5 ETCHINGS 

And Life might well do worse 
Than let them lie content 

For ever thus, calmed by the soul 
Of the blue firmament. 



VII 



EARTH-HISTORY 



A brown spine of rocks, 

Like vertebrae of a stranded paleozoic sea- 
saurian, 
With surf shivering over it. 

A sky as pallidly green 
As the slime, near, whence primeval life 
Climbed and spawned thro the ages 
From salt-pools over the land. 

A gray surge of seas foaming 

Around to the horizon, 

With three sails, coming — and going, 

107 



io8 ETCHINGS 

To tell the tale of men, 

Life's latest spawn, pitted against 

The ironic reel of the elements. 



VIII 

INTERSPACE 

Slow wing-beats of a gull, a seaweed swimming, 

A mauve horizon hue, silently dimming, 

A slender isle far out that foam is rimming — 

An isle the moon 

Tints with a silver tune. 

Wan emerald glints like firefly constellations 

On every wave, and mystic emanations 

Of the wind's voice, and pensive palpitations 

From deeps where soon 

The tide will meeet the moon. 

An interspace — ere darkness comes from under 
The East, to chill the evanescent wonder, 
109 



no ETCHINGS 

Ere last day-glimmers fade and float asunder, 
And night, the pall 
Of the Universe, drapes all. 



IX 

STILLNESS 

Still are the Maine pine woods 

When the winds are gone, 

Stiller than lakes in them 

From all feet withdrawn, 

Save from feet of the wild things 

That hunt or swim or fly, 

And awaken trails of ripples — 

That soon as stilly die. 

Still are cone and needle. 
Fallen upon the moss, 
Stiller than time amid them, 
Pausing at a loss. 
Ill 



112 ETCHINGS 

Still are the dead branches, 
That have forgotten life, 
Still as the last stillness 
After earth's last strife. 



THE SORROW-MAKERS 

The moon, prescient of fog, 

Pours pallid silver seaward. 

A ghostly gull, out over the breakers, — 

A gull and I are the only wakers, 

All life else is asleep. 

The soughing rocks slant to the foam, 

The tide turns in, as a heart home ; 

But moon and tide, fog and gull, 

Seem only sorrow-makers. 

For the moon 's too still, the tide too loud, 
The fog too grieving. 
A shroud, only a shifting shroud, 
The sea seems weaving. 
113 



114 ETCHINGS 

Out of its breath, as a soul from death, 

The gull escaping 

Sheers to her nest on the cliff's crest, 

And I alone am left, 

With my shadow the moon is shaping. 



AT A NOVEMBER FUNERAL 

West wind, that fanned the flame of Shelley's 

heart 
Till into high imaginings it broke 
And for all hopeless aspiration spoke 
Immortally — while spectral leaves were flying! 
West wind, over the world shouting and crying, 
Ensheathed in the sere shroud of the dead year, 
z\nd like a shaken prophet tornly trying 
To utter what the inspired alone can hear, 
Speak clear! 

For now my heart, autumnal, like the world. 
Feels flow thro it a spirit like your breath. 
That is not life, yet neither is it death, 
But of the two a strange commingled essence. 
IIS 



ii6 AT A NOVEMBER FUNERAL 

West wind, I shudder at the evanescence 
Of all I see and am — yet as you cry 
I feel that I am trembling in the presence 
Of what can never thro all autumns die. 
Say why! 

Oh say, for death's dark tears are all too salt. 
Too bitterly they stain the burning heart. 
How long still must we from our dearest part, 
Seeing them vanish on an unseen River? 
How long still stand upon its banks and shiver, 
Fearing they sink never again to rise? 
West wind, is Life, or Death the Master-giver? 
Is Death, or Life, the destiny that dries 
All eyes ? 



WILD GEESE IN FLORIDA 

Wild geese, was it you that I heard in the Autumn 

crying, while leaves were flying? 
Was it you I paused to watch in a northern zone, 
As high in freezing flight thro the falling twilight 
You took your southward way with straining 

wing 
To these warm everglade waters? 

The wild-goose heart of me tells me so, 

Tho how it was I do not know ! 

The migrant heart of me — floating here 

Like you amid reedy palms 

And cypress knees and winter-tempered calms. 



117 



WEST AND EAST 

The crescent moon saw thro a window 

A mother turning away with relief 

From the still-born child they had laid beside her 

To childless thoughts of pleasure: 

Saw — and hiding her face in a veil 

Of clouds hurried away to the banks 

Of the Ganges, where the funeral pyres 

Are ever fanned with prayers for children. 



ii8 



TRANSIENCY 

(ToA.H.R.) 

Come, let us watch that rock drown in the tide 
(So many things must go, so many things!) 
Once we were young and the sea was not so wide, 
Or love had wings. 

Once we could round the earth without a sail, 
(The magic winds are gone, the magic foam!) 
Where was the harbor that we did not hail, 
That was not home? 

Come, we will watch the moon with thoughts, not 

dreams. 
(Whatever goes love stays, love warm and wise !) 
Winged is youth; and yet — our way still seems 
Toward paradise! 

119 



AFTER MUCH THEATRE-GOING IN 
NEW YORK 

Open the gates ! Open the skyward gates ! 
My soul is sick of the Highways of Seduction, 
With their pawn-brokers of passion, pose and 

pander. 
Give me again the stars, illumining God, 
Not tinsel constellation touting trade. 

Open the gates — that face toward freedom 
From the dull stupid stench of gaudy decadence. 
For I have tryst with a petrel on a wave 
To leeward of a green isle that I remember 
Six thousand miles across Pacific seas. 



120 



THE SKIPPER'S CHANTEY 

O did I see a sail, mates, or but a dim wraith of 

one, 
Slanting up the wind toward a nor'-east nioon? 
Did she come from Italy, from Araby, from 

Castaly, 
Or up out of deeps where the weedy dead are 

strewn ? 

Did I see a sail, O ! or but a phantom from the 

ooze? 
Three thousand fathoms is n't far for any ghost ! 
And once every year a sunken ship comes back 

again 
To sail for a misty night some moony coast. 

121 



122 THE SKIPPER'S CHANTEY 

Did I see a sail? I wondered as I gazed at her 
If her bows were real — or a death-pale glow. 
But ere I could learn O, she went, into gossamer, 
Went, past glimmer, into ports I '11 never know ! 



PASSION 

Spring is in the apple boughs, 
Spring in the woods. 
Rillets run to make the brooks, 
Brooks to make the floods. 

Birds feel the call of it, 
Songful they pair. 
I can only sit and feel 
A dead woman's hair. 

With it I strangled her, 
Out of love — or hate. 
Spring is in the apple boughs. 
I sit and wait. 

123 



TO A CERTAIN DEVOTEE 

A church bell may ring, but nevertheless 

You wish you were dead, with a stone at your 

head, 
A stone sunk deep in the earth's cool breast, 
And letters that read, "He wanted but rest." 

A church bell may ring, and you may believe 
A God 's in the sky — to hear hearts cry. 
But nevertheless, if given the choice. 
You would choose . . . Oblivion, not God's 
voice. 



124 



AUTUMN WISDOM 

Wisdom is on me, 

Breathed from a golden moon that Autumn 

ripens. 
The chill air is empty of all passion. 
The streets are lanes where love has been; 
Dead leaves cover them. 

The wind's sigh is old; 
No other voice has the night, save the owl's 
In the sycamore of my neighbor 
Between me and the moon. 
There is no call of far things or wild things, 
For the urge of the year is spent. 
Or changed to resignation. 
125 



126 AUTUMN WISDOM 

I do not think of Helen of Troy, 
Of Juliet's balcony — and joy, 
But of Saint John on Patmos . . 
Of Antoninus tenderly mystic 
Toward a mad Universe . . . 
Of sinking stars 



STRENGTH IN EXTREMIS 

Fog — night — surf — wind — rain — 

And in my brain 

A ceaseless surge of pain. 

Dawn, and a windy sea, wilder still ; 

But the rocks — unshattered — 

And my sure will! 



127 



On this and following pages are listed other books by 
Cale Young Rice. They are all published by The Century 
Co., 353 Fourth Avenue, New York City. 

SEA POEMS 
By Cale Young Rice 

"I know of no poems save Swinburne's T will go down 
to the sea, great Mother' and passages of Masefield's 
'Dauber' that so express the moods of the sea. The 
variety of the book is astonishing." — Jessie B. Rittenhouse. 

''Mr. Rice has been called a master of rhythm. . . . His 
command of poetic form and of dramatic, elusive music 
have long been recognized. In this volume the verse 
perfectly expresses his thoughts." — The Springfield Repub- 
lican. 

"In common with such virile poets as Browning and 
Masefield, Mr. Rice has a passionate love of the sea. 
In intensity of feeling for it the American poet surpasses 
all his predecessors. He belongs to the great company 
of world-poets. No other living American can compare 
with him." — The Rochester Post-Express {D. F. Han- 
nigan). 

"With a dramatic grasp which is one of his big qualities, 
Mr. Rice brings before us a poignant scene in a few 
lines, or burdens our vision with the oppressive weight of 
many waters. In form these poems are without flaw." — 
E. A. Jonas (The Louisville Herald). 

"A volume that again confirms Cale Young Rice's place 
among the foremost American poets of the day." — The 
New York Herald. 

"Mr. Rice is one of the few living poets who need no 
hall mark. He has the essential gifts for poetry — bound- 
less imagination and the punctual word. This volume is 
packed with poetry." — The San Francisco Bulletin. 

"Mr. Rice has put so much variety into these poems that 
each is individual. There is so much poetry in him that it 
fairly pours out." — The Brooklyn Eagle. 

"Mr. Rice has written noteworthy prose, but he is best 
known on both sides of the Atlantic as a poet whose work 
has placed him in the front ranks of living poets. ... In 
this volume it is the sea which he fittingly sets forth." — 
The Pittsburg Chronicle. 

l6mo. no pages. Price $1.50 



SONGS TO A. H. R. 
By Gale Young Rice 

"Mr. Rice of to-day is the poet who sang to us yester- 
day of the big, vital things of life. . . . With real genius 
he brings to the soul a consciousness of the strength of 
things many of us have but dimly sensed in all our years. 
. . . 'Songs to A. H. R.* maintains the ardor of imagina- 
tion as well as delicacy and vigor of sentiment which ever 
mark his work." — The Philadelphia Record. 

"The sentiment of this volume is of the strong spiritual 
type richly deserving the name of love songs." — The 
Springfield Republican. 

"There is no absence of felicity in these songs — they 
possess an undeniable singing quality. Mr. Rice's poetic 
mood is sustained in the key of a fine fresh faith, and he 
has embodied it in verse of a finished texture." — The Dial. 

"These songs are to be put in a place by themselves in 
modern verse." — The Rochester Democrat. 

"These poems are so beautiful and satisfying that they 
can be read again and again." — The Portland Oregoman. 

"They range through many forms of the one divine 
emotion. Each is worthy of its name, and the volume, 
breathing with purity and tenderness, burns with a 
spiritual flame." — Margaret Steele Anderson (The Louis- 
ville Post). 

"Spiritual in tone, lyrical in expression, they are songs 
that reveal new dimensions of this poet's virtuosity and 
skin."— The Philadelphia Press. 

"Mr. Rice writes with the buoyant rhythmic uprush of 
a younger age — the passion of these songs is not the 
dark flower upon which Pippa breaks in Browning's poem, 
but its tranquillity does not lessen its dtpth."— The New 
York Times. 

"Spiritual and beautiful love songs . . . bringing a 
breath of the upper air of love, and reaffirming one's faith 
in its permanence." — Jessie B. Rxttenhouse {The Bookman). 

"Many of these songs are so perfectly spontaneous that 
art had no share in them ... or their art is so subtle and 
fine as to make them seem wholly spontaneous." — The 
London Bookman. 

i6mo. 48 pages. Price $1.00 



SHADOWY THRESHOLDS 
By Cale Young Rice 

"Cale Young Rice is far too great a poet to be ac- 
claimed in some partisan circles. . . . He is intensely 
American ... as authentic an artist as Shelley or Keats. 
... He has the magic of Poe without that poet's morbid- 
ity. ... He is America's living master-poet." — D. F. HaH' 
nigan {The Rochester Post-Express) . 

"This volume maintains Mr. Rice's usual high level and 
proves anew his right to one of the high places among 
modern poets." — Edward J. Wheeler (Current Opinion). 

"Mr. Rice is modern in the broadest sense of that term. 
Many of his poems are without rhyme and have irregular 
metres, but they never offend thereby. . . . His place in 
contemporary first class company is secure." — The Spring- 
field Republican. 

"A volume possessing range and variety, together with 
a lyric quality which distinguishes this poet, who ranks 
among the foremost American writers." — The Post-Intel- 
ligencer (Seattle). 

"Mr. Rice in his dramas is an enchanter, and to cast a 
spell is better than to have uttered the most lovely lyrics — 
but he has done both." — E. A. Jonas {The Louisville 
Herald). 

"A new volume showing again the power and beauty of 
Mr. Rice's genius." — The Boston Globe. 

"Here we have variety, if ever. ... If one can only own 
one of Mr. Rice's books this is a good volume to choose." — 
The Galveston News. 

"Cale Young Rice is a poet, capable of sounding the 
deep imaginative strain not only with melody, but with 
vigor and power of thought. This volume will add an- 
other shining stone to his reputation." — The San Fran- 
cisco Chronicle. 

"Once more a book of the same high order as all Mr. 
Rice's work." — The Rochester Democrat-Chronicle. 

"Shadowy Thresholds has as great a variety of poetic 
forms as any volume of late years. . . . Mr. Rice illumines 
many phases of life, uniting in his work the finish and 
romance of the older poetry that constitutes the best merit 
of the new." — The Louisville Evening Post. 
i2mo. 179 pages. Price $1.50 



WRAITH AND REALITIES 
By Gale Young Rice 

"In the writing of lyrics Mr. Rice is unequaled by any 
modern poet. . . .One must go outside of contemporary 
life to find anything of similar excellence." — Gordon Ray 
Young (The Los Angeles Times). 

"A new book by Mr. Rice is always^n event in Ameri- 
can letters. . . ." — The New York Tribune. 

"Here, for all to read, is poetic genius spurred and 
wrought upon ... by a rare and wondrous poetic in- 
spiration. ... It is like great chimes sounding — jangled 
at times or overborne — but always great." — The Philadel- 
phia North American. 

"Mr. Rice in his narratives can tell such tales as the old 
ballad-makers would have gloated over, and can make 
them contemporary and convincing. He can create life 
tragedies or comedies in a few lines and leave the reader 
with a sense of having been given a full meal of circum- 
stance. . . . He is original without striving to be so, and 
one can never be embarrassed by the affirmation that he 
has come to hold a high place among poets of America." 
— The Chicago Tribune. 

"Cale Young Rice has been credited with some of the 
finest poetry, and regarded as a distinguished master of 
lyric utterance, and this latest volume is warrant for such 
approval." — The Brooklyn Eagle. 

"We find in Mr. Rice the large and elemental vision a 
poet must have to serve his people when overwhelmed by 
elemental sorrows and passions. His poetry is a spiritual 
force interpreting life in the various phases of intellect 
and emotion, with a beauty of finish and sense of form 
that are unerring." — The Louisville Evening Post. 

"All that has been said of Cale Young Rice, and that is 
much indeed, is justified in this latest volume." — The San 
Francisco Chronicle. 

"Cale Young -Rice is a real poet of genuine and sincere 
inspiration, never reminiscent or imitative or obvious, but 
singing from a full heart his keen, meditative songs." — The 
New York Times. 

i2mo. 1B7 pages. Price $1.50 



COLLECTED PLAYS AND POEMS 
By Cale Young Rice 

"The great quality of Cale Young Rice's work is that, 
•amid all distractions and changes in contemporary taste, 
it remains true to the central drift of great poetry. His 
interests are very wide . . . and his books open up a most 
varied world of emotion and romance." — Gilbert Murray. 

"The quality of Mr. Rice's work is high. It is seen 
at its best in his poetic dramas, which maintain an astonish- 
ing elevation and intensity of passion . . . but his visionary 
and philosophical poems are nearly as fine. He has a 
thorough mastery of form, yet notwithstanding the ease 
of his verse it is never slipshod or mechanical." — The 
Spectator (London). 

"With variations of phrase Cale Young Rice has been 
described by critics here and in America as "the most dis- 
tinguished master of lyric utterance in the New World." 
. . . He has dramatic genius . . . and is a born maker of 
songs. . . . His later volumes confirm the judgment of 
those who have named him the first and most distinctive 
of modern American lyrists, and one of the world's true 
poets." — F. Heath (The London Bookman). 

"Mr. Rice is an American poet whose reputation is 
deserved. . . . He has achieved a high position as a poet 
and dramatist, a great fertility and variety of outlook 
being marked features of his work." — The London Times. 

"Foremost among writers who have brought America 
into prominence in the realm of modern thought is Mr. 
Cale Young Rice. . . . 'Collected Plays and Poems' is one 
of the best offerings of verse we have had for long. In- 
deed, it has real brilliance. . . . Mr. Rice's plays are mas- 
terful." — The Book Monthly (London). 

"Cale Young Rice is highly esteemed by readers wher- 
ever English is the native speech." — The Manchester 
Guardian. 

"In Mr. Rice we have a voice such as America has 
rarely known before." — The Rochester (N. Y.) Post-Ex- 
press. 

"Mr. Rice of today is the poet who sang to us yesterday 
of the big, vital things of life. . . . With real genius he 
brings to the soul a sense of things many of us have but 
dimly sensed in all our years." — The Philadelphia Record. 



"These volumes are an anthology wrought by a master 
hand and endowed with perennial vitality. . . . This 
writer is the most distinguished master of lyric utterance 
in the new world . . . and he has contributed much to the 
scanty stock of American literary fame. Fashions in 
poetry come and go, and minor lights twinkle fitfully as 
they pass in tumultuous review. But these volumes are 
of the things that are eternal in poetic expression. . . . 
They embody the hopes and impulses of universal human- 
ity." — The Philadelphia North- American. 

"Mr. Rice has been hailed by too many critics as the 
poet of his country, if not of his generation, not to create 
a demand for a full edition of his works." — The Hartford 
{Conn.) Courant. 

"This gathering of his forces stamps Mr. Rice as one 
of the world's true poets, remarkable alike for strength, 
versatility and beauty of expression." — The Chicago Herald 
(Ethel M. Colton). 

"It is with no undue repetition that we speak of the 
very great range and very great variety of Mr. Rice's 
subject, inspiration, and mode of expression. . . . The 
passage of his spirit is truly from deep to deep." — Margaret 
S. Anderson {The Louisville Evening Post). 

"It is good to find such sincere and beautiful work as 
is in these two volumes. . . . Here is a writer with no wish 
to purchase fame at the price of eccentricity of either 
form or subject." — The Independent. 

"Mr. Rice's style is that of the masters. . . . Yet it is 
one that is distinctively American. ... He will live with 
our great poets." — Louisville Herald {J. J. Cole). 

"Mr. Rice is an American by birth, but he is not merely 
an American poet. Over existence and the whole world 
his vision extends. He is a poet of human life and his 
range is uncircumscribed." — The Baltimore Evening Nezvs. 

"Viewing Mr. Rice's plays as a whole, I should say that 
his prime virtue is fecundity or afifluence, the power to 
conceive and combine events resourcefully, and an abun- 
dance of pointed phrases which recalls and half restores 
the great Elisabethans. His aptitude for structure is 
great." — The Nation {O. W. Firkins). 

"Mr. Rice has fairly won his singing robes and has a 
right to be ranked with the first of living poets. One must 
read the volumes to get an idea of their cosmopolitan 



breadth and fresh abiding charm. . . . The dramas, taken 
as a whole, represent the most important work of the kind 
that has been done by any living writer, . . . This work 
belongs to that great world where the mightiest spiritual 
and intellectual forces are forever contending; to that 
deeper life which calls for the rarest gifts of poetic ex- 
pression." — The Book News Monthly {Albert S. Henry). 
i2nio. 2 vols. Price $4.00 

The following volumes are now included in the author's 
"Collected, Plays and Poems," and are not obtainable 
elsewhere: 
At the World's Heart 

"This book justifies the more than transatlantic reputa- 
tion of its author." — The Sheffield {England) Daily Tele- 
graph. 
PoRZiA : A Play 

"It matters little that we hesitate between ranking Mr. 
Rice highest as dramatist or lyrist; what matters is that 
he has the faculty divine beyond any living poet of Amer- 
ica ; his inspiration is true, and his poetry is the real 
thing." — The London Bookman. 
Far Quests 

"It shows a wide range of thought and sympathy, and 
real skill in workmanship, while occasionally it rises to 
heights of simplicity and truth, that suggest such in- 
spiration as should mean lasting fame." — The Daily Tele- 
graph {London). 
The Immortal Lure: Four Plays 

"It is great art — with great vitality." — James Lane Allen. 

"Different from Paola and Francesca, but excelling it 
— or any of Stephen Phillips's work — in a vivid present- 
ment of a supreme rnoment in the lives of the characters." 
— The New York Times. 
Many Gods 

"These poems are flashingly, glowingly full of the East. 
. . . What I am sure of in Mr. Rice is that here we have 
an American poet whom we may claim as ours." — William 
Dean Howells, in The North American Review. 
Nirvana Days 

"Mr. Rice has the technical cunning that makes up 
almost the entire equipment of many poets nowadays, but 
human nature is more to him always . . . and he has the 



feeling and imaginative sympathy without which all poetry 
is but an empty and vain thing." — The London Bookman. 
A Night in Avignon : A Play 

"It is as vivid as a page from Browning. Mr. Rice has 
the dramatic pulse." — James Huneker. 
YoLANDA OF Cyprus : A Play. 

"It has real life and drama, not merely beautiful words, 
and so differs from the great mass of poetic plays." — Prof. 
Gilbert Murray. 
David: A Play 

"It is safe to say that were Mr. Rice an Englishman 
or a Frenchman, his reputation as his country's most dis- 
tinguished poetic dramatist would have been assured by 
a more universal sign of recognition." — The Baltimore 
News. 
Charles Di Tocca: A Play 

"It is the most powerful, vital, and truly tragical drama 
written by an American for some years. There is genuine 
pathos, mighty yet never repellent passion, great sincerity 
and penetration, and great elevation and beauty of lan- 
guage." — The Chicago Post. 

SONG-SuRF 

"Mr. Rice's work betrays wide sympathies with nature 
and life, and a welcome orginality of sentiment and metrical 
harmony." — Sydney Lee. 

TRAILS SUNWARD 
By Gale Young Rice 

"Cale Young Rice has written some of the finest poetry 
of the last decade, and is the author of the very best 
poetic dramas ever written by an 'American. . . . He is 
one of the few supreme lyrists . . . and one of the few 
remaining lovers of beauty . . . who write it. One of 
the very few writers of vers libre who know just what they 
are doing." — The Los Angeles Times. 

"Another book by Cale Young Rice . . . one of the few 
poetic geniuses this country has produced. ... In its sixty 
or more poems may be found the hall mark of individual- 
ity that denotes preeminence and signalizes independence." 
The Philadelphia North American. 

"Mr. Rice attempts and succeeds in deepening the note 



of his singing! . . . keeping its brilliant technique, its 
intricate verse formation, but seeking all the while for 
words to interpret the profound things of life. The music 
of his lines is more perfect than ever, his rhythms fres^ 
and varied." — Littell's Living Age. 

"Cale Young Rice's work is always simple and sincere 
. . . but that does not prevent him from voicing his song 
with passion and virility. Nearly all his poems have eleva- 
tion of thought and feeling, with beauty of imagery and 
music." — The New York Times. 

"Whether the forms of this book are lyrical, narrative, 
or dramatic, there is an excellence of workmanship that 
denotes the master hand. . . . And while the range of 
ideas is broad, the treatment of each is distinguished by a 
strength and beauty remarkably fine," — The Continent {Chi- 
cago). 

"Mr. Rice proves the fine argument of his preface . . . 
for this book has in it form and beauty and a full reflec- 
tion of the externals as well as the soul of the America 
he loves." — The Philadelphia Public Ledger. 

"The work of this poet always demands and receives 
unstinted admiration. . . . His is not the poetic fashion 
of the moment, but of all poetic time." — The Chicago 
Herald. 

"In Trails Sunward,* Mr. Rice demonstrates as hereto- 
fore the possibility of attaining poetic growth and origin- 
ality even in the Twentieth Century, without extremism. 
. . . Sanity linked with vitality and breadth in art make for 
permanence, and one can but feel that Mr. Rice builds for 
more than a day." — The Louisville Courier Journal. 

"I rarely use the term 'sublimity,' yet in touches of The 
Foreseers,' particularly in its cavern-set opening, I should 
say that Mr. Rice had scaled that eminence." — O. IV. Firkins 
(The Nation). 

i2mo. ISO pages. Price $1.50 

TURN ABOUT TALES 

(PROSE) 

By Cale Young Rice and Alice Hegan Rice 

"This volume of stories should hold its own with any 



collection likely to be published this year." — Nezv York Post 
{The Literary Review). 

"American writers have been distinctive as narrators of 
the short story, but few, if any, volumes of such stories 
have recently been published in this country equal to 'Turn 
About Tales.'" — D. F. Hannigan {The Rochester Post-Ex- 
press). 

"The gamut of the volume runs from spiritualism to the 
depths. It contains something of almost anything one hap- 
pens to want. Better yet, it contains something new." — 
The Boston Transcript. 

"Mr. Rice has written well — so well as to justify predic- 
tion that he will, if he elect to do so, achieve greater dis- 
tinction as a short story writer than as a poet. His 
'Lowry,* 'Francella' and 'Aaron Harwood,' to cite a few of 
the stories, meet the test of artistic stories. . . . Each 
leaves an impression that will impel re-reading." — Gal- 
veston News. 

"Both writers portray, in their best vein, a consummate 
though distinctive skill in analyzing and delineating human 
emotions and experience." — Buffalo Commercial. 

"Those who have read Mr. Rice's poetry will find his 
dramatic genius manifest in these stories." — The Watch- 
man, N. Y. 

"Mrs. Rice's humor and pathos combine well with Mr. 
Rice's master of diction and deep human understanding." 
— Milwaukee Journal. 

"Each story is notable for beauty of technique . . . each 
has its definite appeal." — Louisville Evening Post {Mar- 
garet S. Anderson) . 

"Each of the stories is of such finished workmanship as 
to make the reading of it an unadulterated pleasure." — 
Baltimore Sun. 

"The book is one of the best of the kind in this year's 
American fiction." — The Spectator {Portland, Ore.) 

"Mr. Rice has grappled with the constructive problems 
of his time, so one finds them without surprise in this 
newly adopted vehicle. . . . Three of his stories have a 
realism as relentless as Chekhov's . . . and it goes with- 
out saying that his stories are technically admirable." — 
Louisville Courier-Journal. 

"Mr. Rice so lives through his characters that, as Whit- 
man says, he Ts that man' of whom he writes.' — PittS' 
burg Sun. 



"The same dramatic power and beauty that mark Mr. 
Rice's lyrics will be found in these prose stories." — Cm- 
cinnati Times-Star. 

"One seldom finds a book of short stories so satisfying 
throughout." — Minneapolis Journal. 
Price $1.90 



EARTH AND NEW EARTH 
By Gale Young Rice 

"America has today no poet who answers so well to the 
multiplex tests of poetry as does Cale Young Rice." — 
New York Sun. 

"Glancing through the reviews quoted at the end of 
'Earth and New Earth' we note that we have said some 
very enthusiastic things in praise of the poetry of Cale 
Young Rice, and yet there is not an adjective we would 
withdraw. On the contrary each new volume only con- 
firms the expectation of the better work this writer was 
to produce." — The San Francisco Chronicle. 

"This is a volume of verse rich in dramatic quality and 
beauty of conception. . . . Every poem is quotable and 
the collection must appeal to all who can appreciate the 
highest forms of modern verse." — The Bookseller {New 
York). 

"Any one familiar with 'Cloister Lays,' The Mystic,' 
etc., does not need to be told that they rank with the 
very best poetry. And Mr. Rice's dramas are not equaled 
by any other American author's. . . . And when those who 
are loyal to poetic traditions cherished through the whole 
history of our language contemplate the anemia and arti- 
ficiality of contemporaries, they can but assert that Mr. 
Rice has the grasp and sweep, the rhythm, imagery and 
pulsating sympathy, which in wondering admiration are 
ascribed to genius." — The Los Angeles Times. 

"This latest collection shows no diminution in Mr. 
Rice's versatility or power of expression. Its poems are 
serious, keen, distinctively free and vitally spiritual in 
thought." — The Continent {Chicago). 

"Mr. Rice is concerned with thoughts that are more than 
timely; they represent a large vision of the world events 
now transpiring . . . and his affirmation of the spiritual 



in such an hour establishes him in the immemorial office 
of the poet-prophet. , . . The volume is a worthy addition 
to the large amount of his work." — Anna L. Hopper in 
The Louisville Courier- Journal. 

"Cale Young Rice is the greatest living American poet." 
D. F. Hannigan, Lit. Ed. The Rochester Post-Express. 

"The indefinable spirit of swift imaginative suggestion 
is never lacking. The problems of fate are still big with 
mystery and propounded with tense elemental dramatism," 
— The Philadelphia N orh- American. 

"The work of Cale Young Rice emerges clearly as the 
most distinguished offering of this country to the com- 
bined arts of poetry and the drama. 'Earth and New 
Earth' strikes a ringing new note of the earth which shall 
be after the War." — The Memphis Commercial-Appeal. 
i2mo, 15S pages. $1.50 



